Not my best parenting moment

It was some time late at night, or early in the morning (who can tell which is which) when I heard the sound of Bennett near me, in the dark, sniffling back tears.

“What’s wrong, honey?” I asked, scooping him in my arms, pulling him into bed with me, trying to fully wake from my dream (Emily Perl Kingsley was on Oprah, I kid you not, these are the things I dream of).

“I’m so sad,” Bennett said.

“Why?”

“Really? Because some day, my brothers will die before me.”

“Oh, sweetie. You don’t know that! You might be the one who goes first.”

More tears, louder sobbing, of course I’ve made everything worse. Jolted completely awake, I try to fix it, backpeddling, when Tom rolls over from his own dreams and says, “No. No one’s going to die. Daddy says No. Go to sleep.”

Post navigation

13 thoughts on “Not my best parenting moment”

I too have dreams of Oprah doing a show with you, Emily, even Sarah Palin and all the other amazing families touched by our precious babes!!! Maybe someday she will do a show on it, to increase awareness. We can only hope….and dream.

Jennifer
I am still laughing at this! This is something I totally would have done! I have been known to tell my kids to “take out the trash”, “do their homework”, or “finish their supper” in the middle of the night when they have tried to wake me because of some fear or illness.

I have always stood firm that I can not be held responsible for any comments I make when sleeping and/or sleepy.

Oh poor Bennett, but your response was hilarious. Yup, I could picture myself saying that if I was suddenly awoken from sweet dreams. It’s hard having all the right answers in the middle of the night. Glad everyone was able to fall back asleep.

Ooof! What a sweetie, though. You know, I think it’s the age. Aidan is 6 and he often has lengthy talks with us about death. He wants to know who is going to die next and why. I think they are at the age where they start to realize that people don’t live forever and they are trying to prepare themselves.

I think it’s a reflexive (sp?) response, especially in the mid of night. It’s easy to say something logical to an unthinkable situation. I like Tom’s answer. Sometimes “NO” just works! I am just starting to catch up on blogging and I do hope you and your beautiful family had a wonderful Christmas! ♥